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To make homemade yogurt all you need is a half gallon of whole fat pastured fed milk and about a half cup of organic yogurt or a yogurt starter. We used the latter. If you do decide to use yogurt as your starter, avoid any flavorings and stick to plain, unflavored yogurts.

We are so amazed that we could do this. Why you may ask? Because we did not make it with a yogurt maker incubator. It was made with a crock-pot and the oven. Here is how it is done.

Using a crock-pot able to hold 4 cups of milk (1/2 gallon) pour milk into the ceramic bowel and place crock on low for 2 to 3 1/2 hours or until the milk reaches 180 degrees. Our crock-pot warmed the milk to 180 in about an hour and forty minutes.

Next, remove one cup of the warm milk, and incorporate the yogurt starter into the milk then add it back into the crock-pot and mix in well.

Heat the oven to about 200 degrees for about 5 to 10 minutes and turn the oven off. Remove the ceramic pot insert from the crock-pot heating element and with the lid on wrap the pot in a large towel. Place a cookie sheet on the center rack of the oven, and put the towel wrapped pot onto the cookie sheet.

Close the oven door and turn inside oven light on (if your stove is electric – if gas, it is not necessary) and let the milk and starter incubate for up to 12 hours.

The towel will help hold the heat in, and turning on the incandescent light bulb will help maintain warmth in the oven. If your oven is gas, the small flame that is always lit will help maintain heat.

To stop the process or the fermentation of the milk, remove the pot and unwrap it, putting the pot into the refrigerator for up to six hours and then transfer to a clean sterile jar.

The yogurt has a thin consistency like Yoplait or Dannon yogurt. But to get a thicker yogurt like Greek yogurt or possibly Bulgarian style yogurt, you need to put the yogurt into a clean cheesecloth and let the whey drip off.

In the dairy farm community, some farmers take the whey, which is mostly water with some lactose or milk sugars, protein, and yogurt cultures, and mixes it up with the cows’ feed.

Some dairy farms are now adding the whey to their anaerobic digesters, which is a septic tank for cow poo. By adding the whey to the manure and letting it brew to the point of releasing a stinky gas that is then converted into electricity.

One upstate New York farmer’s digester produces enough electricity to run the farm and sell some back to the grid (Consumerist).

The whey from strained yogurt and even cottage cheese is an acid whey, also referred to as sour whey, and there is the sweet whey from cheese making. They two types of whey are used for many things, with two just mentioned.

For health reasons many people are giving up consuming bread, but sourdough bread has earned a place in the hearts of many nutrition enthusiasts. What makes this bread so unique and a better healthier choice?

To start if you are unaware, sourdough bread is actually made from the first type of leavening that was available in ancient times.

Fermented foods have a rich history of tradition and methods of fermentation have been passed down through generations. It’s safe to say that fermentation may have saved the human race during times of drastic climatic changes such as droughts and floods.

Every culture has its own history of fermentation and within these various cultures, traditional tastes and methods began to emerge, so we have the Greeks who perfected the fermentation of yogurt and different breads made with cultures such as sourdough.

We know that Egyptians produced sourdough cultures for making bread as early as 4000 B.C.E. and also fermented wine and cheeses. It may have been completely by accident that some fermentation methods were discovered, but these methods have certainly made an impact on the history of food preservation.

As early as 2,000 years ago, the Chinese were building the Great Wall of China and began to ferment cabbage as a way to feed the workers. During an invasion of Genghis Khan in Eastern Europe, he introduced the cabbage and it became a staple among peasants and sailors who took huge kegs on long voyages for its abundance of Vitamin C.

Eventually, the fermented cabbage came to the Americas, where it was known as ‘sauerkraut’ from the German words, sauer (sour) and kraut (vegetable). Although sauerkraut wasn’t originated by the Germans, it is now considered a German dish.

Dairy is an example of a successful attempt to preserve milk. In the early days, wandering nomads carried milk in special animal stomach canteens. Since animal stomachs have the enzyme, rennin, which coagulates (curdles) milk, the nomad would have curdled milk or cheese to eat.

History tells us that Sumarians and Egyptians had cheese as early as 4,000 B.C. and the bible mentions that David, future king of Israel, ate cheese and presented it as a gift to the army of Israel.

Salt began to be used for preserving meats in the form of sausages and later, microorganisms helped to ferment meat and preserve them for later use. Fermenting meats was very important before freezing and refrigeration brought a way to keep meats without the fermenting process.

The history of fermentation the world over is an interesting journey. Every culture has its own fabulous recipes and methods for creating amazing dishes. Explore some of the recipes from around the world and see how fermentation has progressed to the present day.